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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26223760">Sukargever</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/mcrhomo/pseuds/mcrhomo'>mcrhomo</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Umbrella Academy (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Accidental Bonding, Childhood Trauma, Immortality, Invincibility, M/M, Queer Themes, Repressed Memories, Suicide Attempt, Time Travel, and also the "im immortal but i rly wanna die actually" trope, couldnt find the tag but the whole "im immortal stuck in a younger body" trope, your days are numbered</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 10:21:30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,540</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26223760</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/mcrhomo/pseuds/mcrhomo</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Everything is burning, but that's no way to start a story. Time gets rewinded yet again, and this time it's not Five, but a sweet stranger named Vincent, who dissolves just like sugar and always acorns. <br/>He needs Five's powers to get back home, but of course didn't account for one of the most important laws of the universe: if there's a Hargreeves involved, expect things to fuck up majorly.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Klaus Hargreeves/Original Male Character(s)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>March 29, 2019. Only four days until the end of all life, Earth, everything as they knew it. Only six people -- six living people, that is -- knew when it would happen, and all they had to stop it was a name on a crumpled sheet of paper: Harold Jenkins. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Number Five, the one who worked nonstop for forty-five years to find some way to stop it (yet in the body of a thirteen-year-old who wore these adorable schoolboy shorts) had no idea what to do next. Well, he thought he did, for sure. In fact, he thought that killing this Harold Jenkins would stop the apocalypse altogether -- but he fell short. He bet the house on the ripple effect, that killing Harold Jenkins would cause something, which, in turn, would cause another something, and so on and so forth. The last something being that the apocalypse would be over, at least until he’s dead and can’t interfere with the Timeline. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>This day had already happened. Everything had gone perfectly fine for five of those living people, they got exactly what they wanted and the truth about everything was going to come out. The only one who wasn’t there was Five, who took a round trip to 1955 to find that vital information. If we’re all being honest here, Five being gone was the reason things went smoothly -- no one to jabber and make commands about stopping the apocalypse. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>When Five came back, restarted the day, and got everyone back on their apocalypse job with no idea what happened before that, things went to shit. Not apocalypse level shit, but shit nonetheless. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The next four days all follow that same trend: the illusion of things being accomplished. If anything, the six siblings are the catalysts, though only one of them is the cause. When the eighth day comes, Vanya becomes a beacon of white light, her violin fueling the world’s demise, exacting what it has thrown at her, to put it simply. She leeches the life out of her brothers, but she forgot about her other sibling. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Allison stands behind her with a pistol pointed to Vanya’s head, physically muted because of Vanya’s actions, but can she do it? For so many years, they left her out of their activities. It wasn’t their fault, of course, because their father was an abusive man, but do they not owe her at least a second chance? She needs to talk it over with Vanya, about the injury, about her powers, about their childhood. But words would do nothing right now, even if Allison could say them.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She puts the pistol next to Vanya’s ear and shoots into the empty concert room. It breaks Vanya out of her trance, and the beam of energy is shot up into the moon. For a moment, they think everything is okay.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The moon itself breaks into huge chunks and rains down on the Earth. Everything dies. That is the end. There is no more. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But of course, that’s no way to start a story.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>The day that wasn’t, the day that seemed to be, and the last rewind.  March 29, 2019. No one is aware of the rewind, not even Five, who prides himself on knowing things non-comprehensible. They are sitting in the same room they were the last two tries, arguing about the end of the world.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Klaus goes on some spiel about...oh, god, something. It’s Klaus, does anyone know what he’s talking about? He’s semi-sober after coming back from the war. Of course, he’s drunk, but it’s nothing like his usual high. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Hey, uh,” the new ghost says, “Yoo-hoo! Klaus!”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Not now,” he says under his breath. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“What?” says Luther, who doesn’t spend enough time with Klaus to know that he’s got at least one of his ghost bitches with him at all times. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Oh, nothing,” Klaus replies. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“He said ‘not now,’” an unknown someone says from the couch. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Everyone braces themselves. Allison and Luther pull fighting stances, Diego draws his knives, and Five jumps from here to his father’s bedroom to retrieve his gun, and then back. Klaus decides to wield an entirely ineffective plastic margarita ‘glass.’ </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>The stranger just sits. “What, are we having a party?” He threw his hands in the air and sighed. He had skin just on the brink of tan, charming brown eyes, and straight white hair combed back into a tiny ponytail at the base of his neck, though a few locks framed his face. His aviator sunglasses sat on top of his head. He was fit and wore a semi-tight hot pink t-shirt and black jeans, along with knee-high white boots with pink buckles all the way up. The entire look was completed with that certain arrogance that says, ‘You think you know what you’re doing? That’s sweet.’</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Five points the gun directly at him and says, “You have thirty seconds to tell me why you’re in my house or I put a bullet through your head.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>The stranger, still sitting, says, “Do it.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“What?” Five says, confused.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Yeah!” Klaus says. “That’s fucked up! Personally, I like a little choking, but murder? That’s too-”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Shut up.” says the stranger.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Please,” Five agrees. He immediately turns his full attention back to the stranger. “Who are you?”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>The stranger takes the sunglasses off his head and puts the arm between his teeth, pondering. “That’s a real good question.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Ten.” Five begins counting.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Funny, thought you’d start at five.” the stranger says amusedly.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Nine. Eight.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“If this was working, I would’ve run away by now.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Five pulls the trigger and shoots the stranger right between his eyebrows. As it goes through his head, he shrieks. In a climactic moment of unknown, the bullet hits the bar directly behind him, and he lifts his head back up and sighs, wiping away a bit of blood but revealing no wound at all.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Everyone else in the room is visibly shocked by this, and the stranger seems to have lost a bit of his original self-assurance. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“If you don’t mind not shooting me again, I’m here to help.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Who are you?” Five asks once their weapons are away and all are sat down. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Got a more general question?” the stranger says, then takes a drag from his cigarette.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Okay, fine,” says Five. “What is your name?”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>The stranger exhales his smoke and then says, “It differs. In the seventies I go by Sugar Stranger, after newspaper headlines about me. I used to be a sort of legend in Israel They called me Sukargever, for the way I dissolve, but all record of me was destroyed in the Crusades.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“What can we call you?” Five insists.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Klaus sighs and says disdainfully, “I don’t produce enough mucus for Hebrew.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“You lot can call me Vincent,” the stranger says.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Why didn’t you die when Five shot you?” Luther asks, straightforward as he always seems.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Because I’ve already died.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Everyone else voices their confusion and Five channels his old colleague, Hazel. “Elaborate.” </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“We have four days until the world ends, do you really want to hear a story as long as this?”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Luther gets defensive and asks Five, “Wait, how does he know about that?”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Five creeps toward his gun as if it would do anything, and asks, “Do you work for the Commission?”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Vincent laughs. “Darling, I work against the Commission. Though in order to hate them, you have to know them first, right? Oh, and I thought you had learned your lesson with that gun.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Five brings his hands to his lap and cleared his throat as if nothing had happened. “How long were you on the job?”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“A year. Of course, every day in that year was its own year, but...I didn’t do the job very well.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Do tell,” says Five.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“I kept, um, goofing off. Once, on a case in 2005,  I ignored my instructions and went to 1994 to stop Courtney Love from killing her husband. They sent me to get reprimanded by the Handler, but of course I came straight here.” </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Why?” said Allison. “Why are you so interested in the apocalypse?”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Vincent froze and seemed to show a moment’s vulnerability, but shook it off. “I’m willing to make a deal.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Diego stood up and came closer to Vincent. “Hey, listen, big boy. We don’t make deals around here. Find some other people, I’m done making deals.” </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“This is about your detective, isn’t it? Everything is right now, I understand. You won’t make a deal, but your brother Five will.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Diego lunged towards Vincent but Luther brought him back to the couch with a quick tug on his arm. “Not now, hothead.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Five turns toward Vincent and nods. “Shoot.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“You’ve already tried to stop the apocalypse twice. The first time, you all die. The second time, you still fail and all end up in separate years in - get this - the sixties. You need me to stop the apocalypse.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Why do we need you?” said Klaus. “Like, no offense, but you’re just a kid.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“I look sixteen because I died sixteen. I’ve lived longer than you can even comprehend. I’ve run out of numbers.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Oh, well, okay,” Klaus nodded and slouched back down.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Klaus still had a good point,” Luther said. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“I did? You agree with me? Number One agrees with me?” </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Brag later, darling. Luther, do you remember what I said about my Israeli folklore status?”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Yes, they call you Sukar…something, because you can dissolve.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Wouldn’t you want to know what that means?”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Five interrupted. “We don’t have time for these games! Tell us what you want from us or there’s no deal!”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Vincent grabbed Five’s wrist and they both dissolved, leaving behind dust and four baffled Hargreeves.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>When they re-materialized, they were in the stairwell at the Commission headquarters. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“No, no, no, fuck! I knew you were lying, you are with them, you bastard!”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“No one can hear you but me.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Five, panting from his panic, put his hands on his knees to catch his breath. “What?”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“We’re not really here. Just viewing.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Five nodded in agreement, then insisted, “I still don’t follow.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“The Handler came to recruit me in 1980. I was alone with...with a friend, and she froze time and asked if I wanted to work for her organization, yada yada. I said no. I said, what the fuck is happening? Get out of my house or I’m calling the cops. She disappeared and time went back into motion.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“You said no to the Handler?”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“I was sixteen, Five. Not everyone grew up in households where superheroes were the thing, and training was every morning, and you argued with your father about time travel like it was something normal. For all I knew, someone laced the weed I was smoking.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  
</p>
<p>
  <span>Five looked like he wanted to say something, but refrained for once in his life. </span>
</p>
<p>
  
</p>
<p>
  <span>“An hour later, I left my house to get chocolate chip cookies. My friend wanted chocolate chip cookies, so I was going to get some for him. I left my house, entered my car, and got shot right in my third eye. She sent field agents after me.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  
</p>
<p>
  <span>“So that’s how you died…” Five said. “What happened after that?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  
</p>
<p>
  <span>Vincent breathed. “I was dead. For an unimaginably long time. It felt like I would have been able to see the world form and burn ten times over, and then live that amount of time ten times over, and so on.</span>
</p>
<p>
  
</p>
<p>
  <span>But then the Handler, she rewinded time. She fiddled with the equations so I would have all of my memories still. And it was the same room, with the same friend, at the same hour that she made the first offer. She told me that my death was in a timeline that would never have to happen if I joined the Commission. And what choice did I have, honestly? </span>
</p>
<p>
  
</p>
<p>
  <span>But what she didn’t account for...unexpected consequences. When she brought me back, I was supposed to be dead. She didn’t know about what happens when time and death interfere.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What happens?” said Five. </span>
</p>
<p>
  
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Any living being has infinite versions of itself over infinite timelines. Each of those timelines are equally infinite, and have equally infinite versions of that being.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  
</p>
<p>
  <span>Five tried to look like he understood. </span>
</p>
<p>
  
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You don’t have to get it. But when you die, all of those versions cease to exist. You are no longer a living being. If the timeline is restored and you don’t die, it was like they never disappeared in the first place. An undo button of sorts. What the Handler didn’t account for was that equation that ensured my memory. When she rewinded time, she replaced my version for that moment with a dead version. Which shouldn’t even be possible. Even the timelines, the most intricate thing for mankind to understand, which no one has ever fully mastered, even they didn’t know how to account for it. </span>
</p>
<p>
  
</p>
<p>
  <span>Instead of there being infinite living versions of me, there is a single dead version strung across every moment of every timeline.  Do you know what this means?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  
</p>
<p>
  <span>Five inhaled, pondered, and decided on "No."</span>
</p>
<p>
  
</p>
<p>
  <span>"It means I can time travel on my own, even better than you can. But there's even more." </span>
</p>
<p>
  
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Of course there's more," Five said nonchalantly. "There's always more."</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>"Because the single dead version is...well, dead, when she resurrected me, only she knew I was there. Anyone that wasn't her was exactly like this, not even aware I'm there. When she introduced me to people at Headquarters, they thought she was crazy. She ran another experiment, took another person’s life span from another timeline, and sent me on a fake mission to that time with altered equations. This made it so I was still dead, but at least tangible within that lifespan, because there's no point in a field officer that can't even interact with his surroundings. She kept doing this with different lifespans for different missions she sent me on, but as valuable as the time travel was, I was a slacker and also a traitor of sorts, so she sort of abandoned the idea after my...dramatic escape. What's important, though, is that I can travel to any time I want, past or future, and any variation of it. This is where the deal comes in."</span>
</p>
<p>
  
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Yes," Five said. "The deal."</span>
</p>
<p>
  
</p>
<p>
  <span>"I would be extremely valuable to you in stopping the apocalypse because I can go to any situation and gather vital information. It helps that I can't die and leave you with only the few pieces you used to cause the apocalypse last time."</span>
</p>
<p>
  
</p>
<p>
  <span>"I...what-?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  
</p>
<p>
  <span>"I'm not done. What I need from you is your time travel powers."</span>
</p>
<p>
  
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Why? I thought you just said you had your own."</span>
</p>
<p>
  
</p>
<p>
  <span>"This version of me is born in 1992 and dies in three months. I have unfinished business back in the eighties and I need to be there physically before it expires. I'm hoping you can take me there, drop me off. After we fix all of this. You get to stop the apocalypse, and I get to go back home. Do we have a deal?" </span>
</p>
<p>
  
</p>
<p>
  <span>Vincent offered his right hand. Five had no choice but to take it. </span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Vincent and Five arrived back in an instant, and the rest of them gawked like they’d never seen a man dissolve before. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Welcome back, Sugar Man, what the fuck was that?” Klaus said.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Five cleared his throat and adjusted his tie. “Vincent and I have made a deal.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Woah, woah, woah, you what? Without asking us how we felt?” Diego said defensively.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“That was still not the question, but go on anyway!” Klaus said. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Diego, you wouldn’t understand,” Five said.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“No, old man, I think that you don’t want us to understand because of your stupid fucking god complex that makes you need the mortals to bow down to you! Well guess what? Fuck you! You’re no better than any of the rest of us!”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Oh, </span>
  <em>
    <span>I’m </span>
  </em>
  <span>the one with the complex? You wear a leather domino mask and play cops and robbers all day. You always have to be the good guy!” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“At least I don’t kill innocent people because of your - what, your ripple effect?” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Vincent stood up from his seat and walked in between Diego and Five, who would be nose-to-nose if not for their height difference. “Sit down, ladies.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Reluctantly, they did. Vincent walked over to Diego, who jumped over the back of the couch. “You ain’t touching me, hot sugar, arms length.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>When he said ‘arms length,’ however, he stuck out his arm for effect. Poor decision on his part. The two of them dissolved to somewhen else.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>------</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>They find themselves a day earlier, at the motel where Detective Patch died. Diego gets his bearings and his stomach drops - why was this stranger taking him here? Why can he teleport just like Five? </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He finds Vincent just down the hallway peering into the window of the room where Klaus was captured and Eudora Patch died.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Hey!” Diego yells. “Sugar cube! Explain this shit or I’ll find a way to kill you.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Believe me, darling, I’ve tried,” Vincent says. “Your detective is in the motel office. She just called the gym asking for your help. In the previous timeline, she convinces Hazel to put his gun down and Cha-Cha shoots her from behind. Stay behind her and find Cha-Cha at all costs. Do not kill Hazel.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“She’s alive?” Diego said. His face changed from ecstatic to confused, “You can time travel?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“It’s a long story you’ll hear later.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“T-Thank you, Vincent. I...You have no idea how much this means to me. I mean, I’ve slacked on her so much, but I’m ready to fix our friendship if it takes my fucking-”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I don’t care, Diego. I did this so you could save the one you love. And to prove I’m on your side. I’ll be back.” Vincent then dissolved, assumably back to the rest of them. Diego took a moment to breathe it all in, then sprinted to the motel office.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>------</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Thank god you’re here, I was about to leave without you!” Eudora Patch stood at the counter with one hand on her hip, scolding him for being so late. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>His footsteps slowed as he walked through the doorway. “Oh, my god.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“What is it this time, Diego?” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He stepped toward her and tilted his head to inspect her features. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Are you okay?” She asked him. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Yeah. Yeah, why?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You’re acting funny. Thank god I’m a homicide detective and not the DEA, cause I’d think you were on something.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Diego had to hold himself back from crying. Patch was really here. Alive, in front of him. He reached a hand up to touch her cheek, but she slapped it away. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Don’t touch me,” Patch said. “We’re done with that.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Yeah,” Diego nodded. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“A-Are you sure nobody like...laced your coffee this morning? You’re out of it.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“No,” Diego replied. “I’m so in of it.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Well, uh,” Patch changed the topic. “I was thinking about what you said this morning, about trying things your way...and I thought it was total bullshit, by the way, until the guy that runs this dump said its residents are safe from the man. Actually, he said woman after that and I hated him more. Anyway...I was thinking if this motel is totally overrun by criminals, who’s to say it wasn’t a criminal who shot those assholes and saved your brother?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Hey,” Diego said remorsefully, “I’m sorry for what I said this morning. The other things...they were hurtful.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Patch gasped in fake shock. “Really? Diego Hargreeves is sorry for something?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Diego rolled his eyes. Things were really, actually normal.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“But for real, thanks, Diego,” Patch said. “You ready to catch some assholes and save your brother?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Oh, yeah, that,” Diego said. “Yeah.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>They walked out, guns and knives drawn, peering into every window. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I know which room it is,” Diego said.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“How?” said Patch.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Diego froze for a moment. “Hargreeves intuition.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>They both headed towards that room, and Patch slowly and steadily opened the door, finding Klaus next to it, strapped to a chair. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Klaus!” Diego said, cutting the duct tape from his wrists. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Klaus held his free wrists and took the tape off of his mouth. “Thank you,” he mouthed, and a shot was fired from the bathroom. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Detective Patch pointed her gun at the bathroom and Klaus ducked behind the bed and crawled through the vent with the briefcase. Before anyone could even move, though, Diego threw his knife into the bathroom and killed the unknown shooter, then through another down the hallway and landed it right in Cha-Cha’s neck. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Patch lowered her gun and looked at Diego. “Damn.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Diego retrieved his knives and came back to where Patch was standing, then Vincent materialized next to them.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“What the fuck?!” Patch said, pointing her gun at Vincent. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Don’t worry,” Diego said, his attention still completely on her. “He’s just my...ride.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Vincent clicked his tongue and winked at Patch. He turned to Diego and asked, “Everything go smoothly?” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Yeah,” Diego said. “See ya, Eudora.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Vincent grabbed his wrist and they dissolved back to the present day. </span>
</p>
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